Blog Posts About: Speaking

New Video: Presentation Planning Explained by Common Craft

Have you ever heard the term "Death by PowerPoint"? It's a reference to presentations that are disorganized and go on forever. It's a plague and we want to help.

Our latest video was suggested by members and is designed to teach students an essential 21st century skill: how to plan a presentation so that it's organized and easy to follow. 

What it Teaches:

All great presentations have one thing in common: they are well organized. This video illustrates how to plan your next presentation so that your audience easily understands what you have to say. It teaches:

  • Why effective presentations matter
  • How to organize and group ideas using sticky notes
  • How to use an outline to develop specific points
  • How to move your points into PowerPoint or Keynote slides
  • Why visuals are important and how to use them

Watch the full video now

Antidotes for Information Overload

Later this spring I will be speaking at an event for institutional researchers called the AIR Forum ("AIR" is the Association for Institutional Research). In speaking with the organizers, I've learned that the audience is very data-oriented and sometimes find it difficult to make their findings understandable to others. It will be my challenge to help them become better explainers. 

In preparation for the event, I wrote an article that was recently published in their newsletter that focuses on antidotes for information overload. 

Here are a couple of excerpts from the article:

On the diminishing returns of more data:

From the perspective of a researcher, the truth is in the data. By sharing the details of the data and accounting for exceptions and confounders, for example, researchers can present accurate and useful information that stands up to the questions and analyses of their peers.
 
Within the insulated world of research, this can work and can be rewarded. But outside of the research world, a different perspective is required. The audience is typically not in a position to poke holes in your assumptions. They don’t necessarily care about the exceptions. They only want to understand why they should care. Details won’t help this audience.
 
Ask yourself this question when you’re communicating data: Is this information for my peers or for another audience? If it’s another audience, you must switch gears and realize that more details and data come with diminishing returns. Different audiences have different needs.
 

On the imprecise, but effective nature of analogies:

Sigmund Freud famously said, “It is true, analogies decide nothing, but they make one feel more at home.” I love that quote because it recognizes the inherent problem with analogies—they are imprecise. It is rarely possible to find an analogy that stands up to the impeccable standards of many researchers. But are they useful and powerful in relating ideas? I think so.
 
Consider some of the great scientific discoveries, like Einstein’s theory of relativity. In my experience, there are two ways to understand it. The first is to have an education in physics. With the proper training, we can see the theory’s details at work. For physicists, this is likely the most powerful way to understand it. But everyone else requires something different—the details don’t work.
 
Thankfully, Einstein often used an analogy that provided a layperson an imprecise, yet useful way to see the big picture of relativity. The most famous is likely the train analogy, where relativity and simultaneous events are explained using people, lightning, and trains—all real and familiar things. This provides a way for non-physicists to develop a basic, yet imprecise understanding that could lead to more learning.
 
While you may not need to explain relativity, you may find that simple, familiar examples and analogies can be used to help your audience see why data matter and why they should care.  

Read the entire article here.

Do you have ideas for avoiding information overload? Leave comment - we'd love to hear from you...

NOTE: If you're interested in learning in-depth about the skill of explanation and how to make Common Craft Style videos, check out our online courses at the Explainer Academy.

Pitching or Presenting? Don't Forget the Understanding

A few weeks ago we spoke at Amplify Festival in Australia and one of the most memorable events of the conference was called “BrightSparks”, produced by the indomitable conference organizer Annalie Killian.  A few hundred people crowded into a bar to watch 18 PhD students pitch their ideas for 2.5 minutes each.  Sachi was one of five judges who helped award $5,000 to the winner.
 
Leading up to this event, we led workshops and spoke about the need for explanation and the goal to increase understanding.  Having just come out of these sessions, it was perfect timing to see these presentations through the lens of explanation. The students did not attend our workshops.
 
The rules were quite simple:
 
Present for 2.5 minutes using analog visual aids, if needed.
Presenters were judged on these criteria:
  • Clarity of purpose
  • Clarity of problem
  • Clarity of audience
  • Passion 
  • Performance
The presenters worked on their presentation with coaching.  It was obvious that they had been well coached in stage presence, voice projection and clear communication. They adopted costumes and used fun visual aids along with personal stories.  You could tell that the presenters, as a whole, had been coached using a consistent and effective system that ensured a certain standard of communication.  
 
But it was obvious to us (and some people who came to our sessions) what differentiated the winners. They didn’t just make an idea clear, they made something complex understandable and relatable for the audience.  The best pitches answered different kinds of questions, mostly focused on “why” and increased understanding:
  • Why should I care about this?
  • Why does it make sense?
  • Why does this matter?
The presentations that didn’t perform as well were more focused on how and what questions:
  • What is this?
  • What are the parts or features?
  • How does it work?
  • How can it be used?
These are important questions that shouldn’t be dismissed - they do contribute to understanding. But what really made the difference between good and great was the ability to make it understandable and relatable to the audience.  
 
Unfortunately, the goal of understanding is often forgotten. It’s an assumed part of effective communication and not something we coach independently. Unlike voice projection or diction, there isn’t often a specific goal or standard for understanding. But I think there should be, especially in business communication. 
 
The next time you present or pitch an idea, remember to consider “why” questions.  Take a step back and ask this important question: “Is this understandable?” Give your audience a way to think about and apply your idea in a way that makes them care about it.  Explain it to them and give them a chance to understand. Without understanding, few other things matter. 
 

NOTE: If you're interested in learning in-depth about the skill of explanation and how to make Common Craft Style videos, check out our online courses at the Explainer Academy.

Why Academic Explanations Are Difficult to Understand

Academic ExplanationsWhen I talk about explanation skills, I often hear a common response: “Boy do I know someone who needs that!” Over time I’ve found that, often, this person in need is a scientist or research professor who can’t seem to explain their work or current projects in an understandable way.
 
It’s a fascinating paradox. You could reason that the most informed people would have the best explanations, but it’s not often the case. Many times, the inverse is true.  As I first learned in the book Made to Stick, knowledge has a way of “cursing” us and making it difficult for us to imagine what it’s like not to know something. When it comes time to explain it, we can’t put ourselves in another’s shoes. This is the Curse of Knowledge.
 
But it goes deeper. Austin Kleon pointed me to an article by Greg Elbow called “Maybe Academics Aren’t So Stupid After All”, which provides a smart look at why academics struggle with being understandable, especially in speech.  Elbow, author of Vernacular Eloquence, deems the condition “sentence interruptus”. He writes:
 
No, the chaos that bedevils the speech of so many academics takes the form of frequent interruptions in the flow of speech — interruptions that come from imperious intrusions into our minds of other thoughts. Before one sentence is finished, we break in with “well but, that isn’t quite it, it’s really a matter of…”. Academics often can’t finish one sentence or thought before launching into a related one. 
 
I’m sure you’ve seen this in action. Elbow relates it to how he was taught in graduate school:
 
When we academics were in graduate school, we were trained to write badly (no one put it this way of course) because every time we wrote X, our teacher always commented, “But have you considered Y? Don’t you see that Y completely contradicts what you write here.” “Have you considered” is the favorite knee-jerk response of academics to any idea. As a result, we learn as students to clog up our writing with added clauses and phrases to keep them from being attacked. In a sense (a scary sense), our syntactic goal is create sentences that take a form something like this:
 
X, and yet on the other hand Y, yet nevertheless X in certain respects, while at the same time Y in other respects.
 
In some ways, the same critical thinking and awareness of criticism that helps academics earn respect among their peers and have fruitful careers inhibits how they present ideas to people outside their profession. It becomes a habit that’s hard to break. Elbow continues...
 
We are trained as academics to look for exceptions, never to accept one idea or point of view or formulation without looking for contradictions or counter examples or opposing ideas. Yet this habit gets so internalized that we often don’t quite realize we are doing it; we just “talk normally” — but this normal is fractured discourse to listeners. 
 
By discussing the exceptions, the alternative views, the conflicting research, one can present a more accurate and defensible position. This style of communication is valuable and needed, especially in academia where defense of an idea can be paramount.
 
However, there is a difference between being accurate and understandable. When understanding is the goal, we sometimes have to trade a bit of accuracy for understanding and realize that without a foundation of basic understanding, the details don’t matter for most people.  That’s why we need better explanations.  Part of Elbow's point is that writing is way to solve the speaking problem and I agree. Writing an explanation forces you to think differently about it and start to see how it could be improved in speech or whatever media you choose.
 

NOTE: If you're interested in learning in-depth about the skill of explanation and how to make Common Craft Style videos, check out our online courses at the Explainer Academy.

Bill Clinton Shows Why Explanation is an Art

Late last week I got a text message from my politically-conservative brother in North Carolina that said “Has there ever been a better political speaker than Bill Clinton?” Indeed, wherever you stand on the political spectrum, it’s difficult to deny the effectiveness of Bill Clinton as a speaker. 

E. J. Dionne published an opinion in the Washington Post where he said: 
Bill Clinton is typically described as the empathetic, feel-your-pain guy. But his greatest political skill may be as a formulator of arguments — the explainer in chief.
Recently USA Today quoted Obama saying this about Clinton:
Somebody emailed me after his speech -- they said, you need to appoint him secretary of explaining stuff... That was pretty good. I like that... the secretary of explaining stuff.
I like it too. 
 
I think Bill Clinton’s abilities as an explainer highlight a big point about explanation. It is an art - everyone does it a little differently and that’s what makes it special.  From The Art of Explanation:
Like any art form, explanation thrives on being unique and novel; it succeeds when it helps people see ideas from a new perspective. It is a conscious act that depends on creativity more than a specific formula or set of steps.
And so it is with Bill Clinton. His explanations are unique to his style and way of thinking. They reflect specific choices by him (and presumably his speechwriters) that present information a remarkably effective manner. But what’s really happening? What can we learn from Bill Clinton? A couple of thoughts...
 
Art and science, working together.  Facts are often backed up by evidence and it’s easy to assume that they can or will speak for themselves. But it’s just not true.  Facts need help to become interesting and understandable.  Bill Clinton’s creative talent is packaging facts into a form that makes people care - and that is one of the true goals of explanation - to package and communicate facts in way that makes people understand, care and feel motivated.
 
Bill Clinton feels your pain. When he packages facts into explanations he does so with an incredible awareness of the audience’s attitudes, styles and perspectives. He can imagine what it’s like for them to hear and feel his words. This is empathy and it's incredibly important to explanations.  His explanations are designed to make the audience feel confident by talking to them in a style that comes across as authentic and real.  
 
Of course, a lot more goes into a Clinton speech.  His good ‘ole boy informality can be disarming. He builds context, tells great stories and make clear connections.  All are important. But the real art of what he does as an explainer boils down to how he approaches facts and packages them into a form that make people care. In that, he is a master. 
 
(Photo : REUTERS/Eric Thayer)
 
Lee LeFever is the founder of Common Craft and author of The Art of Explanation - Making Your Ideas, Products and Services Easier to Understand. Available for pre-order now and arriving in bookstores and eReaders in mid-October. 

Help Us Speak at the SXSW Interactive Festival

I have a favor to ask. Each year, the technology world convenes in Austin Texas for the South-by-Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSW).  To speak at the conference is an honor and the organizers look to the public to help them decide who should speak.  This year Sachi and I have submitted a presentation and in order to increase our chances of being accepted, we're begging asking nicely for votes for our presentation. 

Our talk is all about explanation skills and I think you'll agree that if anyone needs them, it's the tech community.  The details of our talk are below:

 
Description
You’ve done the hard work. Your product or service works beautifully - but something is missing. Potential customers just don’t see the big idea - and it’s keeping them from becoming customers. Your big idea has an explanation problem.
 
The first step to solving this problem and inviting people to get excited about your idea is learning to explain it better. Lee and Sachi LeFever of Common Craft and the book "The Art of Explanation" have created award-winning explanations for the world's most respected companies and earned over 50 million online video views. They will be your guides in understanding the power of explanation and how to put it to work in accomplishing your goals.
 
I hope we'll see you there!